How is Trash Disposed?

The trash production in the United States has almost tripled since 1960 (Figure 2). This
trash is handled in various ways. About 27 percent of the trash is recycled or composted, 16
percent is burned and 57 percent is buried in landfills. The amount of trash buried in landfills
has doubled since 1960. The United States ranks about in the middle of the major countries
(United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France and Japan) in landfill disposal. The United
Kingdom ranks highest, burying about 90 percent of its solid waste in landfills.

Figure 2

What is a Landfill?
There are two ways to bury trash:
Dump - an open hole in the ground where trash is buried and that has various
animals (rats, mice, birds) swarming around. (This is most people's idea of a landfill!)
Landfill - carefully designed structure built into or on top of the ground in which trash
is isolated from the surrounding environment (groundwater, air, rain). This isolation is
accomplished with a bottom liner and daily covering of soil.
o Sanitary landfill - landfill that uses a clay liner to isolate the trash from the
environment
o Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill - uses a synthetic (plastic) liner to
isolate the trash from the environment

Trash is being loaded and compacted in a landfill.

The purpose of a landfill is to bury the trash in such a way that it will be isolated from
groundwater, will be kept dry and will not be in contact with air. Under these conditions, trash
will not decompose much. A landfill is not like a compost pile, where the purpose is to bury
trash in such a way that it will decompose quickly.

Proposing the Landfill

For a landfill to be built, the operators have to make sure that they follow certain steps. In
most parts of the world, there are regulations that govern where a landfill can be placed and
how it can operate. The whole process begins with someone proposing the landfill.
In the United States, taking care of trash and building landfills are local government
responsibilities. Before a city or other authority can build a landfill, an environmental impact
study must be done on the proposed site to determine:

the area of land necessary for the landfill

the composition of the underlying soil and bedrock
the flow of surface water over the site
the impact of the proposed landfill on the local environment and wildlife
the historical or archaeological value of the proposed site

First, it must be determined if there is sufficient land for the landfill. To give you an idea
how much land is needed for a landfill, we'll use the example of a site we visited, the North
Wake County Landfill in Raleigh, North Carolina. This site has both a sanitary landfill, which
was closed in 1997, and a working MSW landfill. The site takes up 230 acres of land, but
only 70 acres is dedicated to the actual landfill. The remaining land is for the support areas
(runoff collection ponds, leachate collection ponds, drop-off stations, areas for borrowing soil
and 50- to 100-foot buffer areas).
Second, the composition of the underlying soil and bedrock must be determined. The
rocks should be as watertight as possible to prevent any leakage from reaching groundwater.

The bedrock must not be fractured or you cannot predict where wastes might flow. You
would not want the site near mines or quarries because these structures frequently contact
the groundwater supply. At the same time, you must be able to sink wells at various points
around the site to monitor the groundwater or to capture any escaping wastes.
Third, the flow of water over the area must be studied. You do not want excess water from
the landfill draining on to neighboring property or vice versa. Similarly, you do not want the
landfill to be close to rivers, streams or wetlands so that any potential leakage from the
landfill will not enter the groundwater or watershed.
Fourth, you need to determine the potential effects of the landfill and possible
contamination on local wildlife. For example, you would not want to locate it near nesting
areas of local or migrating birds. You would want to avoid local fisheries, too.
Finally, if the site contains any historical or archaeological artifacts, you would not want to
build a landfill there.
Once the environmental impact study has been completed, permits must be obtained from
the local, state and federal governments. In addition, money will have to be raised from
taxes or municipal bonds to build and operate the landfill. The North Wake County Landfill
cost about $19 million to build and was paid for through municipal bonds. Because funding
usually comes from some public source, public approval must be obtained through local
governments or a referendum.

Building the Landfill

Once the environmental impact study is complete, the permits are granted and the money
has been raised, construction begins. First, access roads to the landfill site must be built if
they do not already exist. These roads will be used by construction equipment, sanitation
services and the general public. After roads have been built, then the landfill can be
excavated. In the North Wake County Landfill, the landfill began 10 feet below the road
surface.

Parts of a Landfill

Figure 3. This cross-section drawing shows the structure of a municipal solid

waste landfill. The arrows indicate the flow of leachate.

The basic parts of a landfill, as shown in Figure 3, are:

Bottom liner system - separates trash and subsequent leachate from groundwater
Cells (old and new) - where the trash is stored within the landfill
Storm water drainage system - collects rain water that falls on the landfill
Leachate collection system - collects water that has percolated through the landfill
itself and contains contaminating substances (leachate)
Methane collection system - collects methane gas that is formed during the
breakdown of trash
Covering or cap - seals off the top of the landfill

Each of these parts is designed to address specific problems that are encountered in a
landfill. So, as we discuss each part of the landfill, we'll explain what problem is solved.

Bottom Liner System

A landfill's major purpose and one of its biggest challenges is to contain the trash so that the
trash doesn't cause problems in the environment. The bottom liner prevents the trash
from coming in contact with the outside soil, particularly the groundwater. In MSW
landfills, the liner is usually some type of durable, puncture-resistant synthetic plastic
(polyethylene, high-density polyethylene, polyvinylchloride). It is usually 30-100 mils thick.
The plastic liner may be also be combined with compacted clay soils as an additional liner.

The plastic liner may also be surrounded on either side by a fabric mat (geotextile mat) that
will help to keep the plastic liner from tearing or puncturing from the nearby rock and gravel
layers.

Cells (Old and New)

Perhaps, the most precious commodity and overriding problem in a landfill is air space. The
amount of space is directly related to the capacity and usable life of the landfill. If you can
increase the air space, then you can extend the usable life of the landfill. To do this, trash is
compacted into areas, called cells, that contain only one day's trash. In the North Wake
County Landfill, a cell is approximately 50 feet long by 50 feet wide by 14 feet high (15.25m x
15.25m x 4.26m). The amount of trash within the cell is 2,500 tons and is compressed at
1,500 pounds per cubic yard! This compression is done by heavy equipment (tractors,
bulldozers, rollers and graders) that go over the mound of trash several times). Once the cell
is made, it is covered with six inches of soil and compacted further. Cells are arranged in
rows and layers of adjoining cells (lifts).

A bulldozer prepares a new cell in a landfill

In addition to compressing the trash into cells, space is conserved by excluding bulky
materials, such as carpets, mattresses, foam and yard waste, from the landfill.

Storm Water Drainage

It is important to keep the landfill as dry as possible to reduce the amount of leachate. This
can be done in two ways:

Exclude liquids from the solid waste. Solid waste must be tested for liquids before
entering the landfill. This is done by passing samples of the waste through standard
paint filters. If no liquid comes through the sample after 10 minutes, then the trash is
accepted into the landfill.
Keep rainwater out of the landfill. To exclude rainwater, the landfill has a storm
drainage system. Plastic drainage pipes and storm liners collect water from areas of
the landfill and channel it to drainage ditches surrounding the landfill's base.

This storm drainage pipe empties into a drainage ditch.

Drainage ditches run along the base of a landfill. The black pipe
carries landfill gas to a pumping station.

The ditches are either concrete or gravel-lined and carry water to collection ponds to the side
of the landfill. In the collection ponds, suspended soil particles are allowed to settle and the
water is tested for leachate chemicals. Once settling has occurred and the water has passed
tests, it is then pumped or allowed to flow off-site.

This collection pond is for catching storm water. The black liner
helps channel the water and protect the underlying cells.

Leachate Collection System

No system to exclude water from the landfill is perfect and water does get into the landfill.
The water percolates through the cells and soil in the landfill much as water percolates
through ground coffee in a drip coffee maker. As the water percolates through the trash, it
picks up contaminants (organic and inorganic chemicals, metals, biological waste products
of decomposition) just as water picks up coffee in the coffee maker. This water with the
dissolved contaminants is called leachate and is typically acidic.
To collect leachate, perforated pipes run throughout the landfill (Figure 3). These pipes then
drain into a leachate pipe, which carries leachate to a leachate collection pond. Leachate
can be pumped to the collection pond or flow to it by gravity, as it does in the North Wake
County Landfill.

A leachate collection pond is designed to catch the contaminants

that can get into water that goes through the trash in a landfill.

The leachate in the pond is tested for acceptable levels of various chemicals (biological and
chemical oxygen demands, organic chemicals, pH, calcium, magnesium, iron, sulfate and
chloride) and allowed to settle. After testing, the leachate must be treated like any other
sewage/wastewater; the treatment may occur on-site or off-site. At the North Wake County
Landfill, leachate is released to the wastewater treatment plant in Raleigh, where it is treated
and released into the Neuse River. Some landfills recirculate the leachate and later treat it.
This method reduces the volume of leachate from the landfill, but increases the
concentrations of contaminants in the leachate.

Methane Collection System

Bacteria in the landfill break down the trash in the absence of oxygen (anaerobic) because
the landfill is airtight. A byproduct of this anaerobic breakdown is landfill gas, which contains
approximately 50 percent methane and 50 percent carbon dioxide with small amounts of
nitrogen and oxygen. This presents a hazard because the methane can explode and/or burn.
So, the landfill gas must be removed. To do this, a series of pipes are embedded within the
landfill to collect the gas. In some landfills, this gas is vented or burned.

A methane collection pipe helps capture the hazardous gas.

A methane "flare" is used for burning landfill gas.

More recently, it has been recognized that this landfill gas represents a usable energy
source. The methane can be extracted from the gas and used as fuel. In the North Wake
County Landfill, a company collects the landfill gas, extracts the methane, and sells it to a
nearby chemical company to power its boilers. The extraction system is a split system,
meaning that methane gas can go to the boilers and/or the methane flares that burn the gas.
The reason for the split system is that the landfill will increase its gas production over time
(from 300 cubic feet per minute to 1,250 cubic feet per minute) and exceed the capacity of
the boilers at the chemical company. Therefore, the excess gas will have to be burned. It is
not cost-effective to compress the excess gas to liquid and sell it.

Covering or Cap
As mentioned above, each cell is covered daily with six inches of compacted soil. This

covering seals the compacted trash from the air and prevents pests (birds, rats, mice, flying
insects, etc.) from getting into the trash. This soil takes up quite a bit of space. Because
space is a precious commodity, many landfills are experimenting with tarps or spray
coverings of paper or cement/paper emulsions. These emulsions can effectively cover the
trash, but take up only a quarter of an inch instead of 6 inches!

An experimental tarp provides daily cover of the landfill cells.

When a section of the landfill is finished, it is covered permanently with a polyethylene cap
(40 mil). The cap is then covered with a 2-foot layer of compacted soil. The soil is then
planted with vegetation to prevent erosion of the soil by rainfall and wind. The vegetation
consists of grass and kudzu. No trees, shrubs or plants with deep penetrating roots are used
so that the plant roots do not contact the underlying trash and allow leachate out of the
landfill.

Grass and other plants cover the municipal solid waste landfill.

Occasionally, leachate may seep through weak point in the covering and come out on to the
surface. It appears black and bubbly. Later, it will stain the ground red. Leachate seepages

are promptly repaired by excavating the area around the seepage and filling it with wellcompacted soil to divert the flow of leachate back into the landfill.

Seepage of leachate (black) can be seen through a weak spot in the

cover.

Groundwater Monitoring
At many points surrounding the landfill are groundwater monitoring stations. These are pipes
that are sunk into the groundwater so water can be sampled and tested for the presence of
leachate chemicals. The temperature of the groundwater is measured. Because the
temperature rises when solid waste decomposes, an increase in groundwater temperature
could indicate that leachate is seeping into the groundwater. Also, if the pH of the
groundwater becomes acidic, that could indicate seeping leachate.

A groundwater monitoring pipe stands in the center. The two yellow

markers on either side make it more visible so that equipment
operators will not run into the monitoring station.

What Happens to Trash in a Landfill?

Trash put in a landfill will stay there for a very long time. Inside a landfill, there is little oxygen
and little moisture. Under these conditions, trash does not break down very rapidly. In fact,
when old landfills have been excavated or sampled, 40-year-old newspapers have been
found with easily readable print. Landfills are not designed to break down trash, merely to
bury it. When a landfill closes, the site, especially the groundwater, must be monitored and
maintained for up to 30 years!

Even after a landfill is closed, the trash buried there will remain.

How is a Landfill Operated?

A landfill, such as the North Wake County Landfill, must be open and available every day.
Customers are typically municipalities and construction/demolition companies, although
residents may also use the landfill. A layout of a typical landfill with supporting structures is
shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. This overview shows the supporting stations and

structures of a landfill. The drawing is based on the structure of
the North Wake County Landfill in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Near the entrance of the the site is a recycling center where residents can drop off recyclable
materials (aluminum cans, glass bottles, newspapers, blend paper, corrugated cardboard).
This helps to reduce the amount of material in the landfill. Some of these materials are
banned from landfills by law because they can be recycled.

Residents drop off waste at the landfill.

Large trucks transfer municipal solid wastes from all parts of the
county to the landfill.

As customers enter the site, their trucks are weighed at the scale house. Customers are
charged tipping fees for using the site. The tipping fees vary from $10 to $40 per ton. These
fees are used to pay for bonds or operation costs. The North Wake County Landfill has an
operating budget of approximately $4.5 million, and part of that comes from tipping fees.
Along the site, there are drop-off stations for materials that are not wanted or legally banned
by the landfill. A multi-material drop-off station is used for tires, motor oil, lead-acid batteries
and drywall. Some of these materials can be recycled.

Here is a multi-material drop-off station, where residents can

dispose of hazardous household wastes.

In addition, there is a household hazardous waste drop-off station for chemicals (paints,
pesticides, other chemicals) that are banned from the landfill. These chemicals are disposed
by private companies. Some paints can be recycled and some organic chemicals can be
burned in incinerators or power plants.
Other structures alongside the landfill are the borrowed area that supplies the soil for the
landfill, the runoff collection pond, leachate collection ponds, and methane station.
Landfills are complicated structures that, when properly designed and managed, serve an
important purpose. In the future, new technologies called bioreactors will be used to speed
the breakdown of trash in landfills and produce more methane.